Central Los Angeles

LAPD Unit to Move to Historic Building

The Los Angeles Police Department's Internal Affairs Division, which handles some of the department's most politically arduous cases, will soon be doing its delicate work in one of downtown's architectural delights: the Bradbury Building.

The City Council recently approved a request by the Department of General Services for a 10-year lease in the building, located at 3rd Street and Broadway.

Internal Affairs, which investigates charges of wrongdoing against officers, is now in overcrowded Parker Center. The division is expected to make the move by summer. The department will rent 17,000 square feet of the office building, a little more than a full floor, plus parking, for $422,000 a year.

Built in 1893, the Bradbury Building was inspired by an 1887 science fiction story by Edward Bellamy called "Looking Backward," which describe a typical office building as a "vast hall full of light." The building was designed by a draftsman, George Wyman, and named after Lewis Bradbury, a mining tycoon who wanted a monument to himself.

Total cost of construction was $500,000, a huge sum at the time. The building, which is in the final stages of restoration, is known for its elegant five-story courtyard with ornamental cast iron, glazed bricks, marble and polished wood. Bradbury died a few months before the building opened.